Murkowski Chides Party Over Repro Rights, But Voted For Blunt Amendment

When Alaska Republican Lisa Murkowski lost her primary in 2010, she ran an unprecedented Senate campaign and won reelection in a historic write vote push. Her challenger, Joe Miller, won much of his primary support due to his strict stances on abortion rights, and Murkowski was repeatedly bashed over her pro-choice leanings.

Now, the Senator is upbraiding her party over their war on women and attempts to make abortion and even contraception coverage election year issues.

“The right to a safe and legal abortion has been affirmed by the courts, and I stand by that,” she said. “I will continue to support funding Planned Parenthood.”

From her perspective as a Republican, Murkowski said she can’t understand why some in her party have raised reproductive rights as an issue.

“It makes no sense to make this attack on women,” she said. “If you don’t feel this is an attack, you need to go home and talk to your wife and your daughters.”

But is Murkowski’s outrage more lip service than party-bucking? After all, she was one of the votes for the Blunt Amendment, which would have allowed all employers the option of refusing to pay for any health coverage he or she deemed morally offensive — including birth control.

She said when she voted for the bill that she believed it was about preserving religious freedom. And shortly after she changed her position on the amendment, saying “I have never had a vote I’ve taken where I have felt that I let down more people that believed in me.”

Here’s hoping her new rhetoric is a sign that her votes on reproductive rights will begin to match her words.